Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

The formulation of revised Amendment 82 meets all the policy objectives and at the same time provides a temporary bridge to enable real-life work to begin on testing the best way to tackle this problem in the future. I hope my noble and learned friend will recognise the efforts we have made to address and answer the points that he and his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, made. I do not for a moment suggest that the current drafting of the amendment is suitable so I hope my noble and learned friend will commit to taking it away and bringing back a redrafted version at Third Reading that meets the points we have all been making. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 82, to which I was very pleased to add my name. I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, for his tenacity on the issue of Friday releases. I am also grateful to the Minister for meeting us last week and for his helpful letters on universal credit—which I am pleased to see is also addressed in the recent prisons strategy White Paper—and on how the power to avoid some Friday releases has worked in Scotland.

However, as I said to the Minister at our meeting, the latter tells us about the “what” of the small number of releases made under this power but nothing about the “why”. While I quite understand why the Scottish Prison Service could not, as the letter said, comment on the facts of individual cases, I would have thought it could have pulled out some patterns to help our understanding. Such an analysis would surely be of value to the Home Office, so I hope it will pursue the matter further. The fact that the Scottish Government are currently consulting on the possibility of ending Friday releases suggests they are not happy with the current—I would say—overbureaucratic procedures.

It is very encouraging that, as we have heard, the prisons strategy White Paper shows that the Home Office has been listening to concerns raised about Friday releases. I quite understand why the Minister does not want to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation, as he explained when we met. Hence, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, noted, the amendment has been carefully drafted so as not to do so. Indeed, the adoption of pilots as envisaged would provide useful evidence to guide the Government when they are ready to legislate on the matter. Like that of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, my understanding is that it probably will require legislation.

The pilots could be established at the end of the consultation period so that they could take on board views expressed during that consultation. However, we have no idea when legislation will be possible because—even if everything goes smoothly and even with the best will in world—another legislative opportunity might not come along for quite a long while, as has already been suggested, in the wake of what is an extremely large Home Office Bill. It surely makes sense for the Government to support this amendment, which, by enabling the adoption of pilot schemes in the short term, contributes to longer-term, evidence-based policy-making. It could make the world of difference to a number of prison leavers and their reintegration into society.

I hope therefore that the Minister will accept it or at least the principle of it and, as has been suggested, come back at Third Reading with the Government’s own amendment. If he does not, I fear it will send out a message to those working on the ground that, despite the consultation, the Government are not in fact really interested in evidence and how best to address speedily the problems, which they now acknowledge exist, created by Friday releases.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, when I was a child and my parents stopped me doing something I would say “That’s not fair” and they would say “Well, life isn’t fair.” I would argue that this House is where we can make life fairer and obviously Friday releases are not fair. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, on persisting because this is an injustice, and it is a relatively small fix—I would hope.

I understand the point about consultation, but we all know that it is not fair. This amendment is a simple practical solution to the problem. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said “What’s not to like?” There is something not to like: it gives Ministers discretion, whereas I think that they must implement these schemes, so I am less giving than the amendment.

If you want to be tough on crime and want that to be your legacy, you have to break the endless reoffending cycle and give people the best opportunity you possibly can to reintegrate with society. Friday releases are the polar opposite of that. They make life much harder for released prisoners before they have even got on their feet. It is obvious that this has to change.

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[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to reduce releases on a Friday, or on days before bank holidays, including releases of persons whose release falls on a non-working day, by creating a power for the Minister to establish a pilot scheme via secondary legislation that would grant prison governors the discretion to release earlier in the week, where that would be helpful for the prisoner’s reintegration into society.

I thank all noble Lords who have participated, particularly my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for their constructive and entirely commendable approach to this. As my noble friend put it, rather than simply rehearsing the arguments made at an earlier stage, they have gone away, considered the matter and sought to refine them in answer to the points made by my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar.

The question posed ultimately by the noble Lord, Lord German, rehearsing the one posed by my noble friend, was: what is not to like? Regrettably, I cannot answer that with “Nothing”, which I suspect was the answer being fished for. I will endeavour to explain why.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, highlighted the existence of a discretionary scheme in Scotland, in terms of the Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015. We have engaged with the Scottish Government and looked at research carried out by the Scottish Prison Service, and we have seen that the uptake of this discretionary scheme since 2015 is extremely low: only 20 prisoners in that period have been granted early release. I submit that that gives us some indication of the complexities attendant upon the point. It is not as though we have in the neighbouring jurisdiction a solution to this matter which could be taken from the shelf and applied in England and Wales. We plan further engagement with the Scottish Government to look at the matter in more detail, and we will share the results of that engagement with the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt, but the Minister seems to be using this as an argument for not accepting the amendment. I have two points. First, there is no reason why the pilot should follow the example of the Scottish procedures, which, to me, seemed very bureaucratic when I read the helpful letter sent by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. Surely the whole point of pilots is to think about other ways of doing something before the Government actually legislate.

Secondly, yes, a very small number has been helped. We do not know why that is. Certainly, the letter I was sent tells us the what but not the why. But even a small number being helped is better than no one being helped in the period until such legislation can be passed.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, if the Scottish experience shows that it is no good, why on earth was it put in the White Paper?

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

Is the noble and learned Lord in effect saying it will be at least two years until there can be legislation, because this only runs for two years?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

More than once, even today, this House has emphasised the importance of moving forward on the basis of evidence. The Government’s view is that it is appropriate to complete the consultation proceedings, interrogate them and decide how best to move forward.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My suggestion was to wait until the end of the consultation, which we are told will be next April, review the evidence, which surely should not take that long, and then run the pilot on the basis of what is found out in the consultation.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

When this Government want to bring in some quite nasty legislation, they can move very fast. I do not see why they could not bring in some rather nice legislation very fast as well.